On yesterday’s post about the 2010 cat calendar from Animals in Color, there were several reader comments comparing Sebastiano’s colorful cats to the work of pop artist Andy Warhol. Well, did you know that Warhol was a huge cat lover? He and his mother, Julia Warhola, both loved cats and had several of their own, all named Sam except for one called Hester.

In the 1950s, before Warhol became famous for his pop art, he worked as an advertising illustrator and graphic artist. During this time he created numerous whimsical drawings of cats. He even created a limited edition artist’s book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (that’s not a typo, the d was originally left off “Name” in error, but Warhol liked it and kept the mistake.) Apparently the cats in this book were based on the images of the famous cat photographer Walter Chandoha, not Warhol’s own cats. The original copies of 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends (an original sold in May 2006 for $35,000), but it has been republished and used copies can sometimes be found on Amazon.

Reproductions of all the cat images can be found at Allposters.comfor as little as $7.49 US.

Warhol continued to be inspired by cats, creating this cat portraitin the 1970s using his signature Pop Art style.

Warhol’s cats continue to appear on various merchandise, including this 2010 Mini Wall Calendarfeaturing the drawings in a colorful layout, as well as in the book Cats, Cats, Catspublished in 1994 featuring 19 black and white and 20 color illustrations accompanied by playful quotes from Warhol’s books and diaries.

Agree….Sebastiano’s cats have a Warholian influence. My first impression upon seeing Sebastiano’s cats was that they were Warhol & Shepard Fairey deconstructed – the originality is in the expressions…..

Love it! Like I said in yesterday’s post, I collect any Warhol cat related piece. Probably the best item I have is a calendar from a few years ago. I have each month’s illustration framed throughout my house.

The best site I have found for used books is alibris.com. I have found many books there that were out of print that I could not find on amazon or for a better price. If anyone is looking for 25 cats name sam I suggest they go there:)

Who WOULDN’T be inspired by the most gorgeous creatures on the planet –cats? Da Vinci said they were “nature’s masterpieces”; these illustrations of Warholian (?) cats are beauties, especially the golden brown tabby standing tall!

That beautiful black and white cat was our cat…BROADWAY. Andy Warhol was a customer of our antique shop on Broadway in NYC and our cat Broadway (named so because that’s where we found him) lived in our store. Andy loved our cat and asked if he could send his photographer to photograph the cat which he did. Broadway was very cooperative, plopping down on a white board the photographer put on the floor. Looked like Broadway was quite the ham as he posed for a while. Andy did several actual paintings of Broadway but we had the real one. Broadway retired to Florida and passed on to kitty heaven after a long life that included his 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol style fame.